PartitionMagic Question

Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news



Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot
sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk
partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the
third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical
partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the
third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP
partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic
automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the
first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini
file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the
boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same
partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in
the original setup, would have been located in the third
partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector
(PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on
the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in turn
pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary location).
Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont
even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My
current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition
(there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a
time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually reading
the boot.ini file located in that partition's root directory (as
you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a
menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the
approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does
happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's
located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess the
MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader
function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active partition
and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each partition to
loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1 OS why
don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary partition, if you
are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step process I
described is essentially correct. However, this thread seems to have
wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that PartitionMagic (PM)
WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file. So one question is, will
the boot process get all the way to the active partition boot sector
(PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and
then hang because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent partition
(originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original third
partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will the boot
process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the boot.ini file
without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only using ONE
OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in the root directory
of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on another
partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root directory (C:\)
of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than the first
active primary partition, the OS will by default place boot.ini, NTLDR and
NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active primary partition. If you
delete that partition, then you cannot boot WinXp or Win2k without first
moving/copying those files to the root of the OS and then making that the
first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first active
partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot process
may have further information here. I know you did not say anything about
multiboot, but what you want to do, if I unsderstand you correctly goes
someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition of the
HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and were to be
deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the root directory of
the third partition (the only active, bootable partition). The boot.ini
file would have an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first 2
partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini file so
that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the OS (ntldr and
boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition) now resides
(apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the deletion
of the logical partitions.




A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WI NDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="M icrosoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have to
change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.



Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the OS is
to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving only one
partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the OS partition
would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by deleting the diagnostic
partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.

Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one partition on the
physical drive it will just assume that thats the one intended.

No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild
from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.




Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my
other question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console
prior to manipulating the partitions.

What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.
The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.

Thanks,
Harvey

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news



Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot
sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk
partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as
the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are
logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point
to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP
partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic
automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to
the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups
possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where
will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same
partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in
the original setup, would have been located in the third
partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector
(PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on
the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in
turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary
location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont
even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My
current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition
(there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a
time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually reading
the boot.ini file located in that partition's root directory (as
you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a
menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the
approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does
happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's
located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess the
MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader
function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active partition
and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each partition
to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any of the
others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1 OS
why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary partition, if
you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step process I
described is essentially correct. However, this thread seems to have
wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that PartitionMagic
(PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file. So one question is,
will the boot process get all the way to the active partition boot
sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume that PM CAN correctly set
up) and then hang because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent
partition (originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original third
partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will the
boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the boot.ini
file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only using
ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in the root
directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on another
partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root directory
(C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than the
first active primary partition, the OS will by default place boot.ini,
NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active primary
partition. If you delete that partition, then you cannot boot WinXp or
Win2k without first moving/copying those files to the root of the OS and
then making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first active
partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot
process may have further information here. I know you did not say
anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if I unsderstand you
correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition of
the HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and were to be
deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the root directory
of the third partition (the only active, bootable partition). The
boot.ini file would have an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first 2
partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini file so
that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the OS (ntldr and
boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition) now resides
(apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the deletion
of the logical partitions.




A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\W INDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS=" Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have to
change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.



Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the OS is
to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving only one
partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the OS partition
would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by deleting the diagnostic
partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.

Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one partition on
the
physical drive it will just assume that thats the one intended.

No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild
from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.

Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my other
question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console prior to
manipulating the partitions.

You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.

What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first, before
the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.

Yeah, it probably does.

The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.

You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Bob H wrote:




Harvey Gratt wrote:




Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news



Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot
sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk
partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as
the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are
logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point
to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the
XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic
automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to
the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups
possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so
where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same
partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in
the original setup, would have been located in the third
partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector
(PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on
the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in
turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary
location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont
even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out where
the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My
current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition
(there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a
time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually
reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root
directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a
menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the
approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does
happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's
located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess the
MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader
function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active
partition and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each partition
to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any of the
others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1 OS
why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary partition, if
you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step process I
described is essentially correct. However, this thread seems to have
wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that PartitionMagic
(PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file. So one question
is, will the boot process get all the way to the active partition
boot sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume that PM CAN correctly
set up) and then hang because the boot.ini file points to a
non-existent partition (originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only using
ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in the root
directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on
another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too complicated
to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root directory
(C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than the
first active primary partition, the OS will by default place boot.ini,
NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active primary
partition. If you delete that partition, then you cannot boot WinXp or
Win2k without first moving/copying those files to the root of the OS
and then making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first active
partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot
process may have further information here. I know you did not say
anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if I unsderstand you
correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition of
the HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and were to be
deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the root directory
of the third partition (the only active, bootable partition). The
boot.ini file would have an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first 2
partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini file so
that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the OS (ntldr and
boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition) now resides
(apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the deletion
of the logical partitions.




A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from
there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\ WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS= "Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have to
change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.



Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the OS
is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving only one
partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the OS partition
would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by deleting the diagnostic
partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.

Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one partition on
the
physical drive it will just assume that thats the one intended.

No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild
from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.

Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my other
question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console prior to
manipulating the partitions.

You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.

What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first, before
the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.

Yeah, it probably does.

The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.

You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.

I wouldnt however make a change to the partitions like that
without a full image of the entire physical drive. PM can
destroy the drive contents if thing go completely pear shaped.

Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news




Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot
sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk
partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as
the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are
logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point
to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP
partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic
automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to
the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups
possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where
will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same
partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in
the original setup, would have been located in the third
partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector
(PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on
the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in
turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary
location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont
even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My
current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition
(there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a
time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually reading
the boot.ini file located in that partition's root directory (as
you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a
menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the
approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does
happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's
located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess the
MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader
function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active partition
and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each partition
to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any of the
others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1 OS
why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary partition, if
you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step process I
described is essentially correct. However, this thread seems to have
wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that PartitionMagic
(PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file. So one question is,
will the boot process get all the way to the active partition boot
sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume that PM CAN correctly set
up) and then hang because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent
partition (originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original third
partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will the
boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the boot.ini
file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only using
ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in the root
directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on another
partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root directory
(C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than the
first active primary partition, the OS will by default place boot.ini,
NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active primary
partition. If you delete that partition, then you cannot boot WinXp or
Win2k without first moving/copying those files to the root of the OS and
then making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first active
partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot
process may have further information here. I know you did not say
anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if I unsderstand you
correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition of
the HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and were to be
deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the root directory
of the third partition (the only active, bootable partition). The
boot.ini file would have an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first 2
partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini file so
that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the OS (ntldr and
boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition) now resides
(apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the deletion
of the logical partitions.





A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\ WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS= "Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have to
change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.




Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the OS is
to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving only one
partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the OS partition
would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by deleting the diagnostic
partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.

Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one partition on
the
physical drive it will just assume that thats the one intended.

No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild
from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my other
question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console prior to
manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.


What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first, before
the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.


Yeah, it probably does.


The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.


Chicken before the egg??? If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the
boot.ini file unless it's done before the whole process.

I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or
from the Recovery Console if the above works.

The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP
cd. And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work - so that's why the
question about the Recovery Console.

Thanks,
Harvey

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





Bob H wrote:





Harvey Gratt wrote:





Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news




Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition
boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of
disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as
the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are
logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would
point to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the
XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic
automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to
the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups
possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so
where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same
partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which,
in the original setup, would have been located in the third
partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector
(PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location
on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which
in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary
location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear
so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont
even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out where
the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My
current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one is
active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually
reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root
directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a
menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the
approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does
happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's
located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess
the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader
function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active
partition and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each partition
to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any of the
others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1 OS
why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary partition,
if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step process
I described is essentially correct. However, this thread seems to
have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that PartitionMagic
(PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file. So one question
is, will the boot process get all the way to the active partition
boot sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume that PM CAN
correctly set up) and then hang because the boot.ini file points to
a non-existent partition (originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix
the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only using
ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in the root
directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on
another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root directory
(C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than the
first active primary partition, the OS will by default place boot.ini,
NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active primary
partition. If you delete that partition, then you cannot boot WinXp or
Win2k without first moving/copying those files to the root of the OS
and then making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first
active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot
process may have further information here. I know you did not say
anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if I unsderstand
you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition of
the HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and were to be
deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the root directory
of the third partition (the only active, bootable partition). The
boot.ini file would have an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first 2
partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini file
so that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the OS (ntldr
and boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition) now resides
(apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the deletion
of the logical partitions.





A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from
there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2) \WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS ="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have to
change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.




Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the OS
is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving only
one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the OS
partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by deleting the
diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.

Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one partition on
the
physical drive it will just assume that thats the one intended.

No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild
from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my other
question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console prior to
manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.


What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first, before
the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.


Yeah, it probably does.


The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.

Chicken before the egg???

Nope.

If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's done
before the whole process.

You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.

I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or from the
Recovery Console if the above works.

Nope.

The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP cd.
And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work

Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini

- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.

See above.

Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news





Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition
boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of
disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as
the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are
logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would
point to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the
XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic
automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to
the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups
possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so
where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same
partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which,
in the original setup, would have been located in the third
partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector
(PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location
on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which
in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary
location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear
so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont
even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out where
the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My
current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one is
active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually
reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root
directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a
menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the
approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does
happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's
located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess
the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader
function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active
partition and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each partition
to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any of the
others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1 OS
why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary partition,
if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step process
I described is essentially correct. However, this thread seems to
have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that PartitionMagic
(PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file. So one question
is, will the boot process get all the way to the active partition
boot sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume that PM CAN
correctly set up) and then hang because the boot.ini file points to
a non-existent partition (originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix
the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only using
ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in the root
directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on
another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root directory
(C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than the
first active primary partition, the OS will by default place boot.ini,
NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active primary
partition. If you delete that partition, then you cannot boot WinXp or
Win2k without first moving/copying those files to the root of the OS
and then making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first
active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot
process may have further information here. I know you did not say
anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if I unsderstand
you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition of
the HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and were to be
deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the root directory
of the third partition (the only active, bootable partition). The
boot.ini file would have an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first 2
partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini file
so that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the OS (ntldr
and boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition) now resides
(apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the deletion
of the logical partitions.






A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from
there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2 )\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have to
change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.





Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the OS
is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving only
one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the OS
partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by deleting the
diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.

Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one partition on
the
physical drive it will just assume that thats the one intended.

No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my other
question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console prior to
manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.



What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first, before
the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.


Yeah, it probably does.



The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.


If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's done
before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.


I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or from the
Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.


The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP cd.
And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini


- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.


Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will
still allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Thanks,
Harvey

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news





Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition
boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of
disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition
as the third partition on my HDD. The first two
partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the
boot.ini file would point to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make
the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic
automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point
to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups
possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so
where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same
partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which,
in the original setup, would have been located in the third
partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector
(PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location
on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which
in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an
arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it
would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it
wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out where
the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My
current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one
is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active
partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually
reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root
directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's,
a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to
the approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does
happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think
it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I
guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start
the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the
active partition and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any
of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1
OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary
partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this thread
seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file.
So one question is, will the boot process get all the way to the
active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume
that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang because the boot.ini
file points to a non-existent partition (originally the third
partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix
the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only
using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in
the root directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on
another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root directory
(C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than the
first active primary partition, the OS will by default place
boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active
primary partition. If you delete that partition, then you cannot
boot WinXp or Win2k without first moving/copying those files to the
root of the OS and then making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first
active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot
process may have further information here. I know you did not say
anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if I unsderstand
you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition
of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and were
to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the root
directory of the third partition (the only active, bootable
partition). The boot.ini file would have an ARC path pointing to this
third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first 2
partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini file
so that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the OS
(ntldr and boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition) now
resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.






A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from
there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks
like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition( 2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDO WS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have
to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.





Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the
OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving only
one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the OS
partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by deleting the
diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.

Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one partition
on the
physical drive it will just assume that thats the one intended.

No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my
other question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console prior
to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.



What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.


Yeah, it probably does.



The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.


If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's done
before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.


I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or from the
Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.


The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP cd.
And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini


- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.


Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will still
allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news





Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition
boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of
disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition
as the third partition on my HDD. The first two
partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the
boot.ini file would point to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make
the XP partition the first partition, will
PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file
to make it point to the first partition so as to make
subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so
where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same
partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector"
which, in the original setup, would have been located in
the third partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot
sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific
location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the
MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at
an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it
would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it
wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out
where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My
current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one
is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active
partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually
reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root
directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple
OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a
jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the
selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what
does happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think
it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I
guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start
the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the
active partition and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or
any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1
OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary
partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this thread
seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file.
So one question is, will the boot process get all the way to the
active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume
that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang because the boot.ini
file points to a non-existent partition (originally the third
partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can
fix the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of
hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only
using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in
the root directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on
another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root
directory (C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than
the first active primary partition, the OS will by default place
boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active
primary partition. If you delete that partition, then you cannot
boot WinXp or Win2k without first moving/copying those files to the
root of the OS and then making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first
active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot
process may have further information here. I know you did not say
anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if I unsderstand
you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition
of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and were
to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the root
directory of the third partition (the only active, bootable
partition). The boot.ini file would have an ARC path pointing to
this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first 2
partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini
file so that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the
OS (ntldr and boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition)
now resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything
on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.






A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from
there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks
like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition (2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WIND OWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have
to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is
deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.





Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the
OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving only
one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the OS
partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by deleting
the diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.

Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition
number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one
partition on the physical drive it will just assume that thats the one
intended.

Just checked that by manually editing the boot.ini in a system which
has a single XP partition on boot drive, changing the partition numbers
in both lines from the original 1 to 3 and XP is so stupid that it just gives
up and doesnt give you any opportunity to run the recovery console.

Booted the XP CD, ran the recovery console from there, ran
bootcfg /rebuild
and it found the only OS installation and just asked what to call it etc.

That produced a boot menu at boot time because the original dud entry
was still there, but that was easy to edit out once the full XP booted again.

No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my
other question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console prior
to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.



What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.


Yeah, it probably does.



The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.


If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's done
before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.


I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or from
the Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.


The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP cd.
And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini


- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.


Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will still
allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Bob H wrote:






Harvey Gratt wrote:






Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news





Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition
boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement
of disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active
partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first
two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the
boot.ini file would point to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make
the XP partition the first partition, will
PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file
to make it point to the first partition so as to make
subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so
where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the
same partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector"
which, in the original setup, would have been located in
the third partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot
sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific
location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the
MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located
at an arbitrary location). Is my understanding
incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it
wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out
where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process.
My current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one
is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active
partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually
reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root
directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple
OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a
jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the
selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what
does happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think
it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I
guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start
the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the
active partition and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or
any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1
OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary
partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this
thread seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini
file. So one question is, will the boot process get all the way
to the active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I
assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang because the
boot.ini file points to a non-existent partition (originally
the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can
fix the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of
hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only
using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in
the root directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on
another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root
directory (C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than
the first active primary partition, the OS will by default place
boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active
primary partition. If you delete that partition, then you cannot
boot WinXp or Win2k without first moving/copying those files to
the root of the OS and then making that the first active
partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first
active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot
process may have further information here. I know you did not say
anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if I
unsderstand you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition
of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and
were to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the
root directory of the third partition (the only active, bootable
partition). The boot.ini file would have an ARC path pointing to
this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first
2 partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini
file so that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the
OS (ntldr and boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition)
now resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything
on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.






A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from
there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks
like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partitio n(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WIN DOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have
to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is
deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.





Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the
OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving
only one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the
OS partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by
deleting the diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.

Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition
number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one
partition on the physical drive it will just assume that thats the one
intended.

Just checked that by manually editing the boot.ini in a system which
has a single XP partition on boot drive, changing the partition numbers
in both lines from the original 1 to 3 and XP is so stupid that it just gives
up and doesnt give you any opportunity to run the recovery console.

Booted the XP CD, ran the recovery console from there, ran
bootcfg /rebuild
and it found the only OS installation and just asked what to call it etc.

That produced a boot menu at boot time because the original dud entry
was still there, but that was easy to edit out once the full XP booted again.

No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my
other question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console
prior to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.



What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.


Yeah, it probably does.



The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.


If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's done
before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.


I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or from
the Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.


The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP cd.
And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini


- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.


Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will still
allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.

Better watch out or I could end up completely blind.

One possible gotcha with booting the XP CD is that
it does ask you for the admin password of the OS
you want to recover. So its important you know
what that is before you use PM on the drive.

Corse you could always just boot the
knoppix CD if you get caught like that.

Rod Speed wrote:

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

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...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





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...





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...






Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







Rod Speed wrote:







"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news






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Harvey Gratt wrote:








I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition
boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of
disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition
as the third partition on my HDD. The first two
partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the
boot.ini file would point to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make
the XP partition the first partition, will
PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file
to make it point to the first partition so as to make
subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so
where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same
partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the
boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector"
which, in the original setup, would have been located in
the third partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot
sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific
location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the
MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at
an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it
would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it
wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out
where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My
current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one
is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active
partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually
reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root
directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple
OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a
jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the
selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what
does happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think
it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I
guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start
the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the
active partition and it would access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or
any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1
OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary
partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this thread
seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file.
So one question is, will the boot process get all the way to the
active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume
that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang because the boot.ini
file points to a non-existent partition (originally the third
partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can
fix the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of
hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only
using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in
the root directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on
another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root
directory (C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than
the first active primary partition, the OS will by default place
boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first active
primary partition. If you delete that partition, then you cannot
boot WinXp or Win2k without first moving/copying those files to the
root of the OS and then making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first
active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the multiboot
process may have further information here. I know you did not say
anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if I unsderstand
you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third partition
of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical partitions and were
to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files are located in the root
directory of the third partition (the only active, bootable
partition). The boot.ini file would have an ARC path pointing to
this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first 2
partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini
file so that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the
OS (ntldr and boot.ini are in the root directory of this partition)
now resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything
on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.







A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from
there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks
like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partitio n(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WIN DOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have
to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is
deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.






Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the
OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving only
one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the OS
partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by deleting
the diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.


Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition
number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one
partition on the physical drive it will just assume that thats the one
intended.


Just checked that by manually editing the boot.ini in a system which
has a single XP partition on boot drive, changing the partition numbers
in both lines from the original 1 to 3 and XP is so stupid that it just gives
up and doesnt give you any opportunity to run the recovery console.

Booted the XP CD, ran the recovery console from there, ran
bootcfg /rebuild
and it found the only OS installation and just asked what to call it etc.

That produced a boot menu at boot time because the original dud entry
was still there, but that was easy to edit out once the full XP booted again.


No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my
other question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console prior
to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.




What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.


Yeah, it probably does.




The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.



If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's done
before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.



I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or from
the Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.



The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP cd.
And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini



- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.



Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will still
allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.




Thanks for testing it out. Just to be certain, you did have the Recovery
Console installed so it would normally come up during the boot process?
You then modified the boot.ini file and the machine hung without showing
the Console?

If so, that really sucks. A bootable XP cd is then required.

Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.
Harvey